Given the email I have been receiving, it appears that my use of the word “Motive” as opposed to Intent is confusing some of my readers actually waited a day to post this blog, searching around for a more descriptive word. Should have waited a week!
See if this helps:
While Intent is a determination that guides our Power, our Life Force, I can experience feelings that take me nowhere in particular or take me somewhere contrary to my professed intentions. I used the word “motives” because it is here where so many of us delude ourselves. How so?
If I profess noble feelings – e.g., Love, Kindness, Care, Empathy, Truth-telling – in regard to my words and behaviors, then this is all that matters, correct? Using the illustrations from this post…
It doesn’t matter that the policies and regulations I am executing are creating more and more poverty. What counts, what absolves me of all wrongdoing, as well as the failure to produce my stated Intentions, is the fact that my feelings—My Motivation—are noble!
It doesn’t matter that my words and behaviors have wrecked some of my relationships. I was experiencing loving feelings while saying and doing what I did, so the wreck is not my doing, so it is not my problem.
We delude ourselves when we divorce actual outcomes from stated intentions.
In contrasting Intent and Feelings (Motives), I am asserting that 1) feelings can be dreadful guides and interpreters; and 2) at the end of the day, what matters to people who are Intending to produce a specific outcome is whether or not this is taking place. They don’t hide their failures to produce behind professions of having noble feelings. In owning their power, they own the results it is producing.
Or so I believe …
Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2011
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